MIT's Courses on the Internet and the still polemic Stata Center

"The Stata Center's main pieces are about twelve 120-foot towers and an assortment of adjoining small elements””about six or seven by my count””that accommodate lecture rooms, class rooms, and social spaces on the lower floors. The cluster packs around a public space on the fourth floor that spills out onto a raised outdoor plaza facing south. The whole center””one cannot call it a single building””houses the newly formed Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Linguistics Departments (yes, that is Noam Chomsky's department) and the Philosophy Department, as well as other offices and social spaces, like a café. It contains over 700,000 square feet.

The Stata is already receiving critical accolades, a routine that is now customary for all the Gehry blockbusters that have opened recently. It does deserve its share of critical acclaim. The subtraction of solid surfaces on the inside create piranesian effects of complex visual penetration from one space into another into another with walkways that stream all over the place. It reminds me a bit of Portman's Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Sunlight pours through all kinds of crevasses bouncing off shiny surfaces outside and colorful walls inside. The communal spaces for the research teams connect from one floor to another. The offices seem very comfortable. There are tons of operable windows."

More details here.

If you want information about the courses that MIT is doing using Internet you must visit their sites. It is great to have an opportunity to have classes from MIT.
Hmmm... I am still trying to decide which one I will do first. Many interesting topics. I still didn't find Chomsky name at the list. Maybe he is lost on the piranesian walkways of the Stata center.
Oh! You do not who Piranesi is or any of his work? You will know at the next post.

Feed the fishes

Click at the water and the food will be given. I am putting some fun posts this week because a little bit amusement is fine. Hope you enjoy it for 40 seconds.

Magritte "Empire of Lights"

The Empire of Lights, 1954 by René Magritte

“Life obliges me to do something, so I paint.”

“Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.”

“We must not fear daylight just because it almost always illuminates a miserable world”

“My painting is visible images which conceal nothing... they evoke mystery and indeed when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question 'What does that mean'? It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.”

René Magritte

Focus as optical illusion

If you stare at the word "focus" the image will start moving. When you browse your eyes you can read some words and pieces of phrases.

Colors seen from optical illusions

Colorful circles appear rotating after same seconds staring at the circle.
Hope you like it.

I am a selective procrastinator, in other words a faker?

As a selective procrastinator know how to procrastinate but only do it when you feel you can afford to. You're a faker!

Take this quiz: How Bad A Procrastinator Are You?

I took this quiz just because. But I am a selective procrastinator. What Now? I don't know. I had nothing better to do so I took this quick quiz. I published because I loved the cough-potato cat.
I also did the "How Nerdy are you" but I will not publish it. No, no, no... no way.

Lion couple

I don't know the name of the photographer. I loved this picture.

Kazimir Malevich - White on White

White on White, 1917, by Kazimir Malevich

I will say nothing. Later...
Have a great Sunday!

Philip Dawdy - Independent Journalism Award

Hella Heaven Independent Journalism Award

for Philip Dawdy at Furious Seasons.

You don't know about Philip Dawdy's work because he does not work for the mainstream media anymore.
He is doing the job that is not being done by journalists of the newspapers and other medias, those who were supposed to report the real facts, give people the knowledge to make choices and base their opinions.

The field that he is concentrated at his blog Furious Seasons is of everybody's concern: mental health.
No, no, no... I am not only about those who are in hospices and we have no idea what is happening there. I am also talking about the sedatives, antidepressants and other drugs that are being prescribed to many people who are only sad because of daily life stress and normal problems.
This is how Philip Dawdy describe his work:

I believe in accountability and an honest exchange of ideas.
I'm doing this because I am a reporter who's come to find the print form that has sustained me for the last decade is too restrictive in light of the Internet. That's a complicated point and I will make it elsewhere.
For the last several years, I have been reporting extensively on mental health issues, locally and nationally, primarily at Seattle Weekly, where I was a staff writer until November 2006. In that time, I have interviewed patients living on the streets, in homeless shelters and in state mental hospitals, as well as patients leading more ordinary lives. I have interviewed researchers and doctors great and small. Adding together my formal reporting work and more informal encounters with patients going back to 1989, I have interviewed hundreds of people with mental illness.
I point that out because it has led me to certain conclusions, some reasoned and some more emotional. But, ultimately, my conclusions still add up to one man's attempt to make sense of mental illness in America. Please read this blog in that light.
As far as fancy stuff like journalism awards go, I won awards from the National Mental Health Association for my newspaper reporting in 2005 and 2006, and have won a half-dozen local and regional awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for my reporting on mental illness. In addition, I have won a national award for food writing, and 14 other SPJ awards for government reporting, investigative reporting, science reporting, feature writing and religion reporting.

You can read the whole test here.

I could write many things about Philip Dawdy, how dignified, ethical and what an amazing person he is but I prefer that you take a look at his blog, a blog that inspired many people to start their own blog to tell their stories or to advocate for the disclosure of the harms of psych-drugs. It is to much harm but it generates money. our health was traded for profits that is what medicine is all about nowadays.
Thank you Philip Dawdy


PS:
I am quoting Philip Dawdy:
"Yesterday afternoon, I got my second job reject of the day, this one for a policy analyst position with the Washington State Senate Democratic Caucus. Hell, they aren't even going to interview me. It's like this website has made me toxic when it comes to employment." (emphasis mine)

I am sure that they are jealous and surely ashamed of the journalism they are doing. I prefer toxic than unethical and harmful to the public.

Duane Hanson - 'Traveler' and 'Tourists'

Right: Tourists II, 1988 by Duane Hanson
Left: Traveler, 1988 by Duane Hanson

These are life sized sculptures one of the characteristics of Duane Hanson's sculptures. Using bronze, fiberglass and mixed media and the accessories he did sculptures which realism has been enchanting the public.
Have a great weekend!

Nasa finds water on the moon

Close

This is Nasas's picture of the day and an official report that they found water on the moon:

Water Detected at High Latitudes on the Moon

NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, an instrument on the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 mission, took this image of Earth's moon. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth.

Small amounts of water were detected on the surface of the moon at various locations. This image illustrates their distribution at high latitudes toward the poles.

Blue shows the signature of water, green shows the brightness of the surface as measured by reflected infrared radiation from the sun and red shows an iron-bearing mineral called pyroxene.

Image Credit: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Brown Univ./USGS

Homage to Federico Garcia Lorca

He was an Andalusian poet and a dramatist who liked to draw, made friendship and worked with Buñuel and Dali, is one of Leonard Cohen greatest influence and had political views.
Then he was killed.

"As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die."

"Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies."

"There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them."

"To see you naked is to recall the Earth."

"Oh please leave the ventana open, Federico Lorca is dead and gone." (The Clash)

Swarovski promoting crystal sculptures - Yves Behar and Vincent Duysen

I went to the amazing blog Design Crisis by
Karly Hand and Erin Williamson searching for a post they did five months ago.
I got lost among so many creative and amazing work they have there.
I share with many people a kind of mania that is admiring the decomposition of colors crystals do and I love playing with some little pieces making drawings with the lights of the rainbow colors. They all disappear and vanish and it is part of the game.
Not for these artists. You can find at Swarowsky site many amazing works done by architects, designers, artists and even some people who are from a different field, like Lenny Kravitz, has contributed.
It is hard to chose two and these are here inviting you to see more if you feel like.

Left: "Cascade" by Vincent Van Duysen, an opulent 3-metre chandelier with cascading Swarovski crystal drops that flow down like a waterfall.

Right: "Morpheus" by Yves Behar made of 30.000 stones of crystals.

Monet's house at Giverny

When I joined Second Life I went to Monet's house at Giverny and wrote this post about the place. I went there again a while ago and unfortunately didn't take pictures of the Mary Cassat's exhibition that was there.
Now I'm taking pictures of the few art that is still there because the place is getting bigger but art is disappearing.
At the first photo, top-left, they added "weddings, furnishing and gifts" at "Chez - Monet".
Next photo is a place for music and I took this Bach's picture at my back from outside the window because the others are pictures of the owner.
I also sat in front of a Van Gogh's painting and stood up in front of Toulouse Lautrec's drawings.
The last photo is of a new garden that was build. I can no longer see any connection to Monet and the impressionists when I visit this place.

(click the pictures to enlarge)

Lucky girl finds The Simpsons at the beach

Not that lucky when she arrived but after a walk a smile appeared on her face.

How would you name him? Snowball?

"What are you looking? I like eating."

How do trees feel in winter?

I was talking to Mark, an old blog friend, and just read what he has answered for a comment I left at his blog:

"The trees still look good.
Well looked good, as the leaves have all fallen now and are naked.
Though I don’t think the trees are embarrased."
Yes, I don't think they are embarassed.
After finding this photography by TVGuy at Flickr I guess that some of them even like the snow adding some color at their branches.

Ireland black and white photographs by Philip Pankov

I found these amazing photographs by the Russian Philip Pankov.
He moved to Ireland at an early age and shows the country with his camera in black and white. It is really amazing how the lights are bright and all the details we can see at his work.
You can go to his site and see more of Ireland and also Europe.
(click the pictures to enlarge)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, poet and painter, - "The Blue Bower"

The Blue Bower

I was searching for Dante Gabriel Rossetti's images and poems and came across with the "The Rossetti Archives":

THE Rossetti Archive facilitates the scholarly study of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the painter, designer, writer, and translator who was, according to both John Ruskin and Walter Pater, the most important and original artistic force in the second half of the nineteenth century in Great Britain. In Whistler's famous comment, “He was a king”.

Here is the comment for "The Blue Bower", 1865, according to a scholar:

Introduction

"The picture is a key example of the way DGR, in the 1860s especially, incorporated into his pictures both Venetian cinquecento stylistic devices and the formal and decorative features of Japanese ukiyo-e colored prints. This highly sensuous and decorative approach to his painting first appeared in DGR's remarkable work of 1860, Bocca Baciata. The connection of that painting to the present work is underscored by the fact that the poem doubling the 1860 painting of Bocca Baciata carries the received title of “The Song of the Bower”. The highly erotic idea of “the bower” pervades all of DGR's work, both textual and pictorial.

Strongly erotic as it is, the picture is nonetheless an all but abstract colourist work, a kind of homage to the Venetian and Japanese masters whose pictures DGR was admiring. The contrast of the voluptuous floral work and jewellery with the hexagonal blue background tiles sets a compositional frame for the main drama of the picture, the play of its blues, greens, golds, and reds. The irreal, even fantastic, character of the work gets focused by the purely decorative function of the Japanese koto, which could neither be present nor played in this way or setting. Spencer-Longhurst also rightly observes the contrast DGR works out within the floral materials themselves, where the “opulence (of the passion flowers and clinging wild convolvulus) is balanced by the modest sprig of light-blue cornflowers in the foreground, playing on (Fanny Cornforth's) name” (Spencer-Longhurst, 11)."

We have to be silent after reading scholars words. I will post other works by Rossetti.

Samba School - Brazilian carnival amazing drumns

If you listen to this without feel like moving your body you might be deaf.
This is Brazilian Bacchus's period of the year.